Therese's Tendonotomy

On February 24th, Mr. B., Thomas, Therese, and I made a Sunday evening drive, checked into our hotel, and tried to get some rest before checking in at the surgery center at 6:30 AM on Monday morning.  Therese thought the hotel was splendid.  Here you can see her enjoying the bed, and you also get a good view of the pads that Mr. B. taped on her casts to protect them.

Here is a series of funny faces, so you can see what kind of a silly girl she really is:

 

Saying goodnight to the kids at home:

I didn't take any pictures before or after surgery, partly because I was so tired (both kids slept all 4 hours in the van, so they were refreshed and ready to party and wouldn't go to sleep until midnight), and partly because one little girl was all I could handle.  Bryan sat in the waiting area with Thomas. They did more walking up the stairs and riding the elevator down than they did sitting.  Therese was quite wild in the pre-surgery area, laughing and carrying on.  A nurse walked by and said, "she is really enjoying the happy juice!"  I told him that she hadn't had any happy juice yet.  When they gave it to her, it just made her wilder.  When the doctor came in, she pointed at him and yelled, "Hey, cheeky!"  That is what it sounded like, anyway.  I'm not really sure what she was calling him.  As the medication kicked in she started to hiccup and couldn't hold her head straight.  She basically looked like a hilarious miniature drunk.  They cut the casts off, and then the nurse carried her off to surgery.  She leered drunkenly at me over his shoulder as they disappeared down the hall. 

After surgery we had one cranky little person and the fun was over.  She didn't seem to have any discomfort from having both her achilles tendons sliced in two, but she really, really hated the IV.  When they brought me back to be with her, she was just waking up, and her upper lip was pouted out like a beak.  When her lip looks like that, it means she is MAD at someone.  She was giving the post-op nurse, a very nice woman, the worst stink eye ever.  We went back to the hotel, ate breakfast, and packed up in the van to head for home.  Both kids took naps part of the way.

 The nap refreshed our silly girl and she was back to her normal happy self.  I am sure I would not look this happy if I had just had my tendons severed a few hours previously!  She never needed even a dose of Tylenol. 

Her souvenir from surgery was the pink oxygen mask.  We had a lot of fun with it on the way home.  Therese used it on her stuffed clown bear that she took to surgery with her.  This was such a funny joke that soon the bear was saying, in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Therese's, "Mommy, I need a catheter."    That's my girl!